They Call Me ChaCha
by Auryn Rei Evroren
Summary: My name is Charlene Victoria DiGregorio. You've probably heard of me as "Cha-Cha DiGregorio, the best dancer at St. Bernadette's", right? Well this is my story, and it's definitely not what you've heard. **Based on the PLAY, not the movie**
1. Chapter 1

**They Call Me Cha-Cha**

_by Auryn Rei Evroren_

**Chapter One**

My name is Charlene Victoria DiGregorio. You've probably heard of me as "Cha-Cha DiGregorio, the best dancer at St. Bernadette's", right? Well this is my story, and it's definitely not what you've heard. So sit down and pay attention, because I don't like to repeat myself.

I moved to Chicago when I was thirteen years old. My parents were both from Brooklyn, but they were having problems and decided to move. I guess they thought it would help them like each other more. Considering that dad took off the year I started high school, I don't really think it worked. Anyway, they took me away from all of my friends in the city, and I got to spend the rest of my life in Chicago. It wasn't all bad, but for the first year or so, I hated it. I hated my parents, too.

"Why don't you go outside and play, Charly?" my mama would say. "It's such a pretty day out."

"I don't want to," I told her day after day, but she never stopped trying to get me to go outside. Sooner or later, I found out that was because she didn't want me to smell my dad's cigarettes from his study.

I ended up sitting on the front porch almost every day, just staring out at the neighborhood. It was a cookie-cutter subdivision, where all the houses looked the same. White houses with blue shutters and neatly mowed lawns. It was a prison, living there in suburban America, when I was so used to living in the thick of New York City. Day after day after day, I just sat on my porch. Sometimes kids would come by and ask if I wanted to go out for a coke at the diner on the corner, but on the rare occasions that I felt like making friends, mama didn't want to let me go without her. So I stayed home all summer long until school started.

During the summertime, Mama and Daddy argued about where I would go to school. Mama said public school was just fine for anybody, but Daddy said he didn't like the sound of the local high school, Rydell High. He said if I was going to school, it would be at St. Bernadette's Academy, the all-girls Catholic school. It meant Daddy would have to drive me across town to school every day, but he said he'd do it if it meant there wouldn't be boys looking up my dress every day. They argued and argued, but eventually Daddy won. They enrolled me at St. Bernadette's.

"Now you pay attention and make sure you get good grades in your classes, you hear?" Daddy said in the car as he dropped me off in front of the school. "I don't wanna get no bad calls from a bunch of nuns because you been acting up."

"Because that's never happened before," I muttered under my breath.

"Charlene Victoria!"

"Yes, Daddy. Straight A's."

"That's my girl."

He drove away, and I pretended not to see the cigarette he lit as he turned the corner. I stared up at the school doors, willing myself to climb the steps and enter the semi-crowded halls filled with girls in pleated skirts and cardigans like the one draped around my shoulders.

The smell of cigarette smoke drifted across my nose. Had Daddy come back for something? Did he change his mind, and say I could go to Rydell, like every other kid in town?

When I turned to look, all I saw was a group of leather-wearing teenage boys standing on the sidewalk, smirking at me. Two of the five were smoking, one was sizing up a nearby car, and the other two were staring straight at me.

"Whaddaya say, Zuko?" said one of them, the taller and broader-shouldered one. He had light brown hair that was all a mess.

"I say…Catholic schoolgirls ain't in season, Kenick," replied the second. He was smaller, and his black hair was slicked back. The way he stood, arms crossed, made him seem larger and more interesting than the first speaker.

"Aw, c'mon," the first boy said. "Who needs another day one at Ry-hell?"

The second boy- Zuko? -smacked him in the back of the head. "We do, you idiot. We told the girls we'd be there, and if we ain't…"

"…I'm gonna hear it."

"Well Rizzo ain't gonna be too happy, that's all I'm sayin'."

I raised my eyebrows, curious to know if they realized that I could hear them quite clearly. Zuko raised his brow right back at me- they knew, all right.

"You want somethin'?" I asked, bringing out my Brooklyn attitude. Zuko opened his mouth to respond, but he got cut off.

"Yeah, Zuko, you want somethin'? Cuz you're way outta your territory."

The speaker looked plenty like the one in front of me- clad all in black leather, with dark hair that was slicked back with grease. However, his skin was more tanned, and he had a more muscular build. His facial features declared him probably Italian or Puerto Rican, I couldn't quite tell, but he wasn't pure-bred from the US of A. He'd appeared next to me like a shadow, completely unheard, and with three other guys behind him. I had to have jumped a mile, but no one mentioned anything.

The guy called Zuko spat in the dirt. "Not wantin' anythin' from _you_, Moretti," he said, then whistled to his guys. "Let's head out, boys, good old Rydell's waitin'!" Laughing and singing a lewd parody of the Rydell fight song, they headed off down the street.

I rounded on the boy who'd interrupted. "I don't need any help, thanks so much," I fired off. "I was doin' just fine on my own." He laughed and held up his hands. "Alright, sister, I surrender," he said with a grin. "S'what I get for tryin' to be neighborly. Hows about I try a more conventional approach?" He held out a hand. "Tony Moretti, head of the Flaming Dukes, at your service."

I considered, then shook his hand. "Charly DiGregorio." The bell rang inside, and he let go of my hand rather quickly. "You better go- don't wanna be late to class," he said, smirking. I held up my hand in an 'up yours' gesture, producing several laughs, and ran inside.

Of course I was late.


	2. Chapter 2

**They Call Me Cha-Cha**

_by Auryn Rei Evroren_

**Chapter Two**

"Ah, here's our new student. Nice of you to join us, Miss DiGregorio."

I slunk into the room and dropped into the only empty seat, trying to look as surly as I felt. "I got lost," I muttered, my face turning bright red.

I heard laughter, and the teacher 'tsk'ed at me, but what did it matter? I didn't want to be here anyway. The teacher said her name was Sister Laurel, and that she would be teaching English Literature. Fabulous- I hate reading.

I'd been sitting there for about five minutes listening to her drone on and on when a note hit my desk. I glanced up, and saw the girl next to me staring expectantly at me. She had bright red hair that seemed unnaturally curly, but she'd tamed it into the best ponytail she could manage. She mimed at me to open the note before Sister Laurel saw.

_Saw you talking to the scuds from Burger Palace out front. You friends with them?_

What was this? Had she been spying on me or something? Well…Tony had said that he was the leader of the Flaming Dukes, so these Burger Palace boys had to have been Zuko and his crowd. _No, I don't even know them,_ I wrote on the note and passed it back. In a splitsecond, it was on my desk again.

_They're a bunch of creeps. I'm Kathleen Simpson, by the way._

I didn't even bother to answer her comment about the 'scuds'.

_Charlene DiGregorio. Call me Charly._

After that, we noticed that Sister Laurel was looking in our direction, and didn't pass notes anymore. When the bell rang, I shuffled to the next classroom. It was strange, letting everyone else sit down before I took the last seat available, but at least it meant I didn't have any unpleasant encounters with anyone. This had to be the most boring school in existence! I had Geometry with Sister Helen, History with Sister Greta, and Science with Sister Olivia. Geometry was the only slightly interesting class. I've always had a bit of a head for numbers, and Sister Helen was good at making me feel welcome to like math. Most places, I didn't want to be known as a math nerd, but it didn't bother me so much here.

Lunchtime wasn't bad. Mama had given me a quarter, in case we were expected to buy lunch, and a turkey sandwich in case we weren't. As it turned out, the nuns made pretty good food. That day it was a chicken and rice casserole that didn't taste half bad. I sat with Kathleen, the girl from Sister Laurel's class, and her friends. Donna was the pretty one, with long brown hair that reached to her waist. She had it pulled back with a ribbon into a really beautiful ponytail. Besides her there was Cindy, the spunky raven-haired sweetheart who wouldn't shut up, and Melissa, the quiet blonde who didn't speak at all. Kathy, as Kathleen liked to be known, was like Cindy's twin. They bubbled and gushed about every little thing. Personally, I was drawn toward Donna…she didn't speak much, but she didn't have to. I could tell she was the group leader.

"Girls, this is Charly DiGregorio," Kathy said as she pushed me into a seat next to Cindy. "You mind if she sits with us?" The other girls nodded agreement. I just tucked my hair behind my ear and started poking through my food, until Donna popped her gum loudly and said, "She might as well, since Sheila's not coming back. Or hadn't you noticed, she's ditched us for the scumbags over at Rydell?"

From the conversation that followed, I learned that the girls of St. Bernadette's were a snooty group, who thought of themselves as too good for public school. Their lives revolved around being pretty and smart at the same time. Donna was an English genius, and Cindy was quite good at science. Kathy was convinced she didn't know a thing about history, but according to the other girls, she always made A's on the tests. They also said that Melissa was good at almost everything. All of this explained why no one had made fun of me for being good at math.

By the end of the day, I wasn't really convinced that St. Bernadette's was any better than Rydell, but it at least sounded like I wouldn't die of anything but possible boredom. As I walked carefully down the front steps of the school, trying not to drop my books, I heard whistles. Turning, I saw Tony Moretti and the rest of his cronies, leaning against the building, smoking. Tony was smiling at me, and he beckoned for me to come over.

If my Daddy had seen me, he would've hit me with his belt, but he wasn't there yet. So I went to talk to the Flaming Dukes.

"Whaddaya want?" I asked them, trying to sound uninterested. Tony shrugged. "I thought you might like to meet the boys. Smoke?" One of them was holding out a cigarette box. Now, normally, I didn't smoke, but I'd experimented with Daddy's cigarettes enough to know how it was done. I took one and lit up, to be polite. The boy who'd given me the cig introduced himself as Nathan DeTroyt. Tony said, "Nate's where we get all of our cigs and drinks. His older brother's a big help." He then pointed out his other two boys, Sam McEvoy and Mack Daniels. They were all caramel-skinned, like Tony, except Sam. He was as pale as pale could be, but his black hair helped him blend in. From the accent, I figured Mack was from Puerto Rico.

"So, you're new in town, right? Charly DiGregorio, the new kid on the block," Tony teased. I gave him the finger and he laughed at me. "You got spunk, kid. Say, you wanna head over to the drive-in tonight with me and the boys? We got some girls taggin' along, and you wanna make some friends, right?"

I thought about it…and shrugged. "I'll see if I can get out."

I told them where I lived, and to drive by around eight. If I was coming, I'd be out front. Tony grinned and said they'd be there.

That was when I heard Daddy's car coming, so I quickly dropped the cig, crushed it under my heel, and ran for the car. I smelled smoke in the car when I got in, so Daddy didn't notice it on me. Served him right.

"Mama," I said, while I was helping with the dinner dishes that night, "I made some new friends at school today."

"Did you? That's wonderful!" she said.

"Yes. They want to know if I can go to a movie tonight at the drive-in," I said carefully. Mama's eyes narrowed. "I don't know, honey, it's a school night, and I haven't even met these girls…"

I put on my best excited eyes, and told her everything I knew about Kathy, Donna, Cindy, and Melissa. I said they were the best friends I'd met so far. I said Kathy's mom was a nurse at the hospital, and she would drop us off on her way to take the night shift. Melissa's father would be picking us up when the movie was over, and he sounded so nice, couldn't I please please please go?

"Oh, alright, just this once," Mama said. "Since it's your first day." She kissed my forehead, and two minutes later I was skipping out the front door. "Be careful, and have fun, sweetie!" she called after me.

Oh I was planning to have fun, alright. Just not with Kathy, Donna, Cindy, or Melissa. I grinned evilly to myself just as Tony's car rounded the corner.


	3. Chapter 3

**They Call Me Cha-Cha**

_by Auryn Rei Evroren_

**Chapter Three**

The Dukes were nice- they piled into the back of the car so I could sit up front with Tony. I saw Sam, Mack, and Nate, and also another girl that I didn't know. She was a blonde Marilyn Monroe wannabe, except that she wore a blue skirt and Nate's black leather jacket instead of Marilyn's signature white dress, and she had a cigarette in her mouth.

"Charly DiGregorio, meet Jackie Andrews. Jackie, this is our new little gidget, Charly." I smiled kinda shyly, my newfound confidence in being rebellious keeping my scowl away. Jackie raised an eyebrow at me, until Nate nudged her with his shoulder. She got the message- I was cool. She took the cig from her mouth and smiled. "Nice to meet ya, Charly." Then she laughed. "What kinda name is that, anyway?"

I just shrugged. "It's short for Charlene." I didn't mind people making fun of my name. I wasn't a huge fan of it myself.

A minute later, we pulled into the drive-in with a bunch of other teenagers. Nate and Jackie hopped up onto the back of the car to make more space for Mack and Sam, who were whistling at a pretty red-haired girl headed our way. Unlike Kathy, from school, this girl wasn't a bubbly airhead. She was a looker, and boy did she know it! Her hair was straight, and a light shade of auburn- She was no carrot-top.

Tony introduced her to me as Leslie Madison, and with a little encouragement from Jackie, she said hello. When she climbed into the back of the car to sit between Mack and Sam, I just stared straight ahead.

It was a long movie, from what I remember, which isn't much. Mostly we were just smoking and talking. For a while, Leslie and Sam were making out, but it didn't last very long (Tony laughed and told them if they didn't stop he'd leave them there to beg a ride home from Zuko and his boys).

Speaking of Zuko…I didn't see him anywhere, but two of his friends were near us. About halfway through the movie, they noticed me. One of them poked the other in the arm and pointed. I thought about getting out of the car and going to tell them to stop staring unless they were going to say something, but I stopped when I felt Tony's arm slide around my shoulders.

"Relax, kitten," he muttered, smiling. "They're just lookin' for some fun that they ain't gonna get over here." I snorted, and moved closer to him, anxious to get Zuko's boys to quit looking at me. It worked. They turned around and watched the movie after that. I expected Tony to take his arm back, now that the point was made…but he didn't. I can't say that I really minded.

After the movie ended, we headed for the local diner, Burger Palace. That was where Danny Zuko and his boys hung out, but we didn't expect them to be there that late. I sat between Leslie and Jackie, who were warming up to me.

"You ever thought about piercing your ears, Charly?" Leslie asked, smiling. I nodded. "I thought about it," I said, "-just didn't know how to do it." Leslie's smile widened. "Jackie can do it for you!" She drew her hair away from her ears and showed me. "She did mine. Pretty, huh?"

I nodded, and I'm sure my eyes got real big. "You could do that for me?" I asked Jackie, and she nodded. "No problem. I do it all the time. Next time me and the girls have a sleepover, we'll let you know so you can come. We'll do your ears then."

Just then, the door to the Burger Palace opened, and I quickly shook my hair into my face to avoid being seen by Danny Zuko's right-hand man, the boy with the light hair. He was tailed by the two boys we'd seen at the drive-in.

"Hey, Moretti," the boy called across the room. Tony looked up, then stood and faced the newcomer. "Whaddaya think you're doing here?" Pretending to think about it, Tony stroked his chin. "Well," he said slowly, "I was just thinkin' a bit of grub would be nice. Last I checked we was all allowed to eat. Hadn't you better ask your boys what they were doin' lookin' at my little girl with those wolf eyes?" He crooked his finger at me, and I came to stand beside him. He put his arm around me. "Next time I see those losers starin' at my girl Cha-Cha, I'll send'em back to ya with bloody noses." He grinned and called over his shoulder, "Let's go, guys. Looks like we ain't welcome here."

In the car, I asked Tony what he was talking about when he called me Cha-Cha. He just shrugged. "I noticed you didn't seem to like the name Charly very much, so I changed it. What do you think?"

I thought about it…I pondered it…I mulled it over. Cha-Cha. Cha-Cha DiGregorio. It sounded like a movie star's name. "I like it," I said. "Good," Tony told me, "-because you're stuck with it."

So that was that. I had gone from sweet little Charly DiGregorio to Cha-Cha DiGregorio, the girl who didn't care what her parents thought. Over the next few weeks, Mama and Daddy had no idea that two out of three Saturday nights were spent with the Flaming Dukes and their girls (of which there were several, but Leslie and Jackie remained closest to me). Mama squeaked when she first saw my pierced ears after Jackie's sleepover, but she got used to it. She said it was okay, that she had never told me I _couldn't_ pierce my ears. I told her that Kathy's mama the nurse had done it for me, nice and clean, and that shut her up for good.

Tony Moretti confused me. He didn't seem like much of a gang leader most of the time, but when someone got in his way or tried to mess with one of his friends, he could be downright scary. He was also fast at everything he did. He drove fast, spoke fast, and got things going fast. By the time October rolled around, we were already making out at the drive-in. What happened that made him pick _me_, I don't know, but I wasn't complaining. I never let him under my skirt- at least not then -but that didn't seem to bother him. So I figured, why not?

At school, I became a bit of a celebrity. Not only was I one of "Donna's Girls", which made me one of the most popular girls at St. Bernadette's, I was also known as the only girl brave enough to go with the Flaming Dukes. They were interesting. Sam, Leslie, and Jackie all went to Stonecreek High across town, and Tony and Mack worked at an automobile factory, so no one at St. Bernadette's knew them personally but me. I was an elite, and let me tell you, it felt good. It was the best I'd felt since I left Brooklyn.


	4. Chapter 4

**They Call Me Cha-Cha**

_by Auryn Rei Evroren_

**Chapter Four **

Around December, the Sisters at St. Bernadette's decided to throw a sock-hop, rather than a traditional Christmas dance. This didn't make any sense to me, but no one there seemed to think it strange. Donna, Kathy, and the others just talked about what in the world they were going to wear for the Hawaiian Luau theme. We ended up all meeting at my house to make grass skirts to put over our dresses, and crêpe paper flowers for our hair. It wasn't the same as a night on the town with Jackie and Leslie, but it was fun anyway. Besides, Daddy was starting to get suspicious of my extensive nights out. I had to convince him that I was still best friends with the girls of St. Bernadette's. Really, I was only still friends with Donna- the others had given up on me as a hopeless case, stuck on a gang boy -but in Donna's crowd, you did as Donna said. Donna said to accept me, so everyone did.

"Charly, you're going to look _beautiful_," Kathy gushed as I placed a crown of yellow paper flowers on top of my dark hair. She sighed at the mess of green crêpe in her lap. "I'll never be able to make anything that pretty, this is hopeless." I smiled and took the paper from her, showing her how to do it one more time. Donna just popped her gum and watched the television while Cindy made her a purple flower necklace to match the pink one she had draped around her own neck. Melissa had gone through so much blue paper, I didn't know what we were going to do with it all.

* * *

We wound up leaving some of our excess crêpe paper in Donna's mom's car when she dropped us off at the school. The whole room got a little quieter when we walked in, and I was pleased to see that no one else had come up with the idea for grass skirts and paper flowers.

This was one of the few events at St. Bernadette's at which boys were allowed. Donna's date met us at the door and swept her away, leaving the rest of us dateless. Kathy and Cindy didn't appear to be bothered, they just started having fun dancing with each other, brightly-colored socks flying every which way. Melissa slunk over to the punch bowl and hovered. I didn't know whether or not she was an unintentional wallflower, or if she just liked to be left alone, but I definitely didn't like her leaving me. I just stood there like an idiot, my scowl threatening to ruin my evening. I turned to go hide in the ladies' room for the night and crashed into someone. I hit the floor hard, then tried to get up quickly and shuffle away with an inaudible apology, but whoever had hit me caught my arm and wouldn't let go.

"Where you goin', kitten?"

I gaped. "Tony? What're you doing here?"

He just grinned. "Leslie said somethin' about you bein' alone tonight. I can't let my little Cha-Cha just wander about by herself, now can I?

We wandered out to the edge of the dance floor, avoiding the center, and he put his hands on my waist. I didn't quite know what to do. Tony smiled at me, flicking his jet black hair out of his eyes. "Just go with it, kitten."

Just go with it? _Just go with it? _What was THAT supposed to mean?

Unable to figure it out on my own, I just looked over Tony's shoulder at Donna and copied what she was doing. I swung my hips left and right, raising my hands from my side and swishing my grass skirt a bit. Hey, this wasn't so hard…

"That's it, kitten, you got it!"

I got a bit braver with Tony's seal of approval. As the music got more upbeat, I started moving my feet with the motion of my hips, drifting closer and closer to my partner. He flashed me a wicked smile and just upped the ante. This went on for several minutes until I couldn't really breathe anymore. I doubt this was because of the dancing.

When the song ended, I was much warmer than when it had started. Tony drew me close. "You never said you were a wicked hot dancer, girl," he said, laughing under his breath. I shrugged. "It never came up." Yeah, right, in other words, 'I had no idea'.

I don't really remember what happened towards the end of the dance. I remember that Tony and I talked a lot…I told him about my life in Brooklyn, and he told me a little bit about his history. I don't think it's right to write it all out here, since it's his business, but let's just say that I was a bit surprised by some of it. Other than that, most everything is a hazy memory.

After the dance, Tony and I snuck into the alley behind the school where he often waited for me. I could tell what he really wanted, but I wasn't planning to give it to him, and he was perfectly okay with just kissing. Someday, I told him. Not forever. Maybe even soon, who knew?

Tony drove me home that night. I kissed him goodnight and walked inside to find the absolute worst sight of my life.


End file.
